Freud: The Psychoanalytic

Approach to Personality
 Levels of Consciousness: Iceberg

• 1. Conscious mind – like the top of the iceberg, only a

small portion of our mind is accessible to us.

• 2. Preconscious mind – material that is unconscious,

but can be easily brought into awareness. Moves back
& forth easily between conscious & unconscious.

• 3. Unconscious mind – is completely outside of our

awareness (could produce anxiety if made conscious).
 Structures of Personality

• 1. Id – THE ID — The Demanding Child

– Ruled by the pleasure principle.
• 2. THE EGO — The Traffic Cop
– Ruled by the reality principle
• 3. THE SUPEREGO — The Judge
– Ruled by the moral principle
Id
• Basic psychic energy
and motivations
• Operates to demands
of Pleasure Principle -
strive to satisfy desires
and reduce inner
tension
 Ego
• Deals with real world
• Operates to demands
of Reality Principle
solves problems by
planning & acting
Superego
• Internalized social
norm & moral forces
pressing on and
constraining individual
action
• The “over-I” over ego
 Psychosexual Theory of Development
• Five Stages of Development
• Oral Stage
• Anal Stage
• Phallic Stage
• Latency Period
• Genital Stage
 Oral Stage: Birth to 2 year
• Satisfy drive of hunger and thirst by breast or
bottle
• If fixated after weaned:
• Over Dependency
• Over Attachment
• “Intake” of interesting substances/ideas
 Anal Stage: 2- 4 years
• Id wants pleasure of reducing tension by
defecating & urinating
• Toilet training – get superego to impose
societal norms
– Self-control
– Holding back
– Freedom of action no control
 Phallic Stage: 4 – 6 years
• Sexual energy focused on genitals
• Masturbation
• Differences between boys and girls
• Emerging sexual gender identity
• Personality fixed by end of this stage
 Latency Period 5-11 years of age
• Time between resolution of Oedipus complex
and puberty
• Usually not possible for sexual urges to be
directly expressed
• Sexual energies are channeled into school and
friends
 Genital Stage Adolescence -
Adulthood
• Normal sexual relations
• Marriage
• Child-rearing
 What happens if stages aren’t
resolved?
• We become fixated at that stage & don’t move
on to the next stage.

• The concerns of that stage continue to

dominate adult personality.
 Types of Defense Mechanisms

• Repression
• Reaction Formation
• Denial
• Projection
• Displacement
• Sublimation
• Regression
• Rationalization
 Repression
Repression: the suppression of unpleasant
thoughts. We push unpleasant thoughts into
unconscious so that we can’t access them.

• E.g., a child who is molested, may suppress

the traumatic event so that he/she has no
memory for the event.
 Sublimation – the transformation of an
unacceptable impulse into an acceptable behavior.

• E.g., Aggressive impulses are transformed

into the urge to engage in competitive
sports.

• Most desirable way of dealing with

unacceptable id impulses.
 2. Denial- refusing to believe something
unpleasant has occurred.
• We refuse to accept horrible news, even with
evidence to the contrary.

• E.g., you hear a friend has died & can’t believe

it’s true.
 5. Projection – You attribute your negative
characteristics to another person.
• When people project their own faults onto
others, they generally do not deny that they
themselves possess those faults.

• E.g., Your partner tells you how selfish you

are, when they are in fact selfish.
3. Rationalization – we justify the actions or
events that have happened.

• E.g., A student who decides to forgo studying

for an exam the night before & goes out with
friends.
 4. Displacement- you take out your anger & frustration
on a person or object not the actual target of your anger.

• E.g., After being grilled by your boss, you go

home & yell at your partner or the dog/cat.
 Reaction Formation
• Process of pushing away threatening impulses
by overemphasizing the opposite in one’s
thoughts and action
Reaction Formation – acting the opposite of
how you feel.
• You do the opposite of how you feel to defend
your own doubts.

• E.g., A person who doubts his faith may act

like a religious zealot to defend his religion.
 Denial
• Refusing to acknowledge anxiety-provoking
stimuli
• Mind’s means of keeping its own sensations
out of conscious awareness
• Or
• That fabulous river which runs down the
middle of Egypt which many of us sail on
 Projection
• Anxiety-arousing impulses are externalized by placing
them, or projecting them, onto others.
• A person’s inner threats are attributed to those
around them
• Newt Gingrich: public diatribe against infidelity of
president while engaged in own long term infidelity
out of public eye
 Displacement
• The shifting of the targets of one’s unconscious
fears or desires
• Hydraulic Replacement Model
• Some release valve must be found for the
bottled-up aggressive impulses triggered by
frustration and humiliation
• Example: Man angry at boss kicks dog, kids
• Tools for Anger Workout-www.coping.org
 Sublimation
• Transforming of dangerous urges into positive,
socially acceptable motivation
• Turns sexual energy away from sexual ends
and towards societal goals
• Is is possible that as society becomes more
sexually liberated, art, creativity and even
civilization will suffer?
 Regression
• Returning to earlier, safer stages of our lives
• There may be regression to the stage where
there was previous fixation
 Rationalization
• A mechanism involving post hoc logical
explanations for behaviors that were actually
driven by internal unconscious motives
• Explanation for behavior not even remotely
related to the true causes
 Subliminal Perception

• Very weak stimuli could be perceived and

processed without conscious awareness of
such stimulus having occurred.
• Not consciously aware of stimuli that are
nevertheless being processed by some parts
of our brain
 Transference and
Countertransference
• Transference
– The client reacts to the therapist as he did to an earlier
significant other
• This allows the client to experience feelings that
would otherwise be inaccessible
• ANALYSIS OF TRANSFERENCE — allows the client to
achieve insight into the influence of the past
• Countertransference
– The reaction of the therapist toward the client that may
interfere with objectivity
 Contributions of Freud
• First personality & psychotherapy theory
• Emphasis on sexuality as influence
• Importance of early childhood experience
• Concept of unconscious
• Emphasis on Helper Role in therapeutic relationship
• Scientific approach to mental health on continuum
from physical health